


Hospital Visitation

by toesohnoes



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-30
Updated: 2012-10-30
Packaged: 2017-11-17 09:51:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toesohnoes/pseuds/toesohnoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony visits Steve while he's still unconscious.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hospital Visitation

**Author's Note:**

> Written at my [Tumblr](http://toestastegood-fic.tumblr.com/post/27708368024/they-try-to-make-tony-dress-up-in-costume-before).

They try to make Tony dress up in costume before he gets to visit the Captain, but it’s easy enough to shrug them off. He’s Tony Stark. What charm and a smile won’t accomplish, his fierce stubbornness will. When he strides into the room, he simply ignores the complains of the agents and nurses that try to stop him.

It’s like walking onto a sound stage - it’s also like walking into an entirely different era.

Tony looks around the room and tries to remember that his father grew up in a time period like this, with old songs playing on the radio. Honestly, hospitals haven’t changed all that much over the years. Tony would know. He’s spent a lot of time getting patched up.

Now he looks at the man sleeping in front of him and tries to align him with all of his father’s wild stories and the newsreels from the war. He doesn’t look dangerous enough to be a feared weapon for the Allies. He definitely doesn’t look like the kind of guy who could punch Hitler in the face and live to tell the tale.

Then again, he’s been asleep for several decades. It’s questionable whether or not that counts as ‘living’.

“So,” Tony says, trailing his hand over the uncreased sheets of Steve’s bed. “You’re him. ‘Captain America’.”

There’s no one here to listen to him. He really doubts that Steve can hear him in there. He sleeps like the dead.

“You’ve got Fury’s eye-patch in a twist. I think he’s actually excited,” Tony states. He stops when he reaches the top of the bed and he looks down at Steve’s face. He’s pale, but even like this he looks handsome. Looking down at him, Tony feels a pang of something he doesn’t know how to name. Sympathy. Pity. A wistful form of need. “It’s like Christmas, but keeping him this cheerful requires you to wake up. Do you have any idea how much Agent Coulson is going to cry if you keep pulling the Sleeping Beauty act?”

There is no reaction from the sleeping man. Tony would have been stupid to assume that there would be, but a part of him had still hoped - Cap was a part of his childhood. He was a part of every damn American’s childhood, fed on stories of national bravery and good, honest heroes. Without Captain America, there sure as hell wouldn’t have been an Iron Man.

Looking at the figure on the bed, Tony sees only a man, not a hero. He sees someone damaged beyond repair.

They were too late. For all his father’s desperate searching, they were just too late.

“Sorry, buddy,” Tony says. He glances at the door to make sure that no one is about to disturb them. Satisfied that they are alone, he leans down to press his lips against Steve’s forehead, a dry peck before he straightens up once more. “We tried.”

He stares at the unconscious face for a moment more, before he turns to leave the room without a backwards glance. He closes the door and allows the staff to get on with his work. As he leaves, the radio begins its coverage of the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball game.


End file.
